Courses - Spring 2024

Undergraduate Courses (0-99)

AFRAMER 55: Ishmael Reed: Novels, Poetry, Essays

Instructor: Glenda Carpio

Mondays 12:45pm - 2:45pm

Class Number:20242 Course ID:223976

Description:

Ishmael Reed is one of the most prolific, long practicing and controversial African American writers. A novelist, poet, essayist, playwright, editor, and publisher who has often battled the literary establishment, Reed has been active since the 1960s. This course explores his work against the backdrop of late 20th century African American literary practices.

· Course Component: Seminar

· Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities

 

AFRAMER 91R: Supervised Reading and Research

Instructor: Contact the Course Coordinator

TBA

· Class Number: 11411 Course ID: 110605

Description:

Students wishing to enroll must petition the Director of Undergraduate Studies for approval, stating the proposed project, and must have permission of the proposed instructor. Ordinarily, students are required to have taken some coursework as background for their project.

· Course Component: Tutorial

· Divisional Distribution: Social Science

 

AFRAMER 97: Sophomore Tutorial: Understanding Race and Racism

Instructor: Carla Martin

Thursdays 9:45am - 11:45am

· Class Number:13051 Course ID:123590

Description:

This course will examine the history of race and racism – key analytical constructs that express fundamental issues not only of power and inequality, but also of justice, democracy, equity, and emancipation. The study of race in the social sciences and humanities is an established, dynamic, multidisciplinary, and international field. To understand race and racism with a global perspective, it is necessary to have a transdisciplinary, cross-cultural view to read critically the phenomena that intersect with this variable. Course readings are drawn from the fields of African and African American Studies, sociology, history, cultural studies, political science, anthropology,

philosophy, journalism, and public health. The vast literature produced by scholars in diverse fields provides evidence of how race is based on narratives created to enslave, subordinate, exploit, and exclude millions of human beings across the globe. Assignments will address pressing real-world questions related to race and racism, as well as pedagogically significant areas of undergraduate intellectual and academic development.

Course Notes:

Required for concentrators in African and African American Studies. Open to all undergraduates.

Related Sections:

· Course Component: Tutorial

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 98: Junior Tutorial-African American Studies

Instructor: Contact the Course Coordinator

-TBA

· Class Number:11862 Course ID:118023

Description:

Students wishing to enroll must petition the Director of Undergraduate Studies for approval, stating the proposed project, and must have the permission of the proposed instructor. Ordinarily, students are required to have taken some coursework as background for their project.

Recommended Prep:

Completion of African and African American Studies 10, or a substitute course approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

· Course Component: Tutorial

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 98A: Junior Tutorial-African American Studies

Instructor: Contact the Course Coordinator

-TBA

· Class Number:11862 Course ID:118023

Description:

Students wishing to enroll must petition the Director of Undergraduate Studies for approval, stating the proposed project, and must have the permission of the proposed instructor. Ordinarily, students are required to have taken some coursework as background for their project.

Recommended Prep:

Completion of African and African American Studies 10, or a substitute course approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

· Course Component: Tutorial

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER:99B Senior Thesis Workshop

Instructor: Contact the Course Coordinator

-TBA

· Class Number:12279 Course ID:159794

Description:

Thesis supervision under the direction of a member of the Department. Part two of a two-part series.

Course Notes:

Enrollment is limited to honors candidates.

· Course Component: Tutorial

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

Undergraduate & Graduate Courses (100-199)

AFRAMER 113X: Fiction Writing: Workshop

Instructor: Jamaica Kincaid

Wednesdays 12:00pm - 2:45pm

· Class Number:15645 Course ID:219702

Description:

This class is open to anyone who can write a letter, not an e-mail, a letter, just a plain simple letter, to someone who lives far away from you and who has no idea really of who you really are, except that you are, like them, another human being. I have not quite yet settled on the books we will read but we will see some films: The Four hundred Blows, Black Girl, The Battle of Algiers, The Mack, a documentary about the Motown singing group, The Temptations.

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities

 

AFRAMER 119X: Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food

Instructor: Carla Martin

Thursday 12:45pm - 2:45pm

· Class Number:15622 Course ID:108879

Description:

This course will examine the sociohistorical legacy of chocolate, with a delicious emphasis on the eating and appreciation of the so-called “food of the gods.” Interdisciplinary course readings will introduce the history of cacao cultivation, the present day state of the global chocolate industry, the diverse cultural constructions surrounding chocolate, and the implications for chocolate’s future of scientific study, international politics, alternative trade models, and the food movement. Assignments will address pressing real world questions related to chocolate consumption, social justice, responsible development, honesty and the politics of representation in production and marketing, hierarchies of quality, and myths of purity.

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 121X: African Literature and Culture in Context, 1891—1995

Instructor: Timothy Ogene

Mondays 3:45pm - 5:45pm

· Class Number:21180 Course ID:224009

Description:

This course will bring together a variety of texts, archives, and visual representations from the late nineteenth century to the twentieth century, and explore how African writers, artists, and thinkers have consistently responded to major sociocultural, environmental, and geopolitical changes on the continent and beyond. This course will emphasize and engage key moments and encounters that have shaped the development of modern cultural and political thought on the continent and its new diasporas, with a focus on the multivocality of modern and traditional modes of storytelling and representation on the continent. The fictional depiction of historical experiences will be read alongside personal accounts of travels and encounters at home and abroad. And the double contexts of protest and pleasure will be paired with the conscious modes of self-representation that began to emerge in the early days of pan-Africanist thought and politics, in further relation to the movement of ideas across the Black Atlantic. The broader contexts and entangling impact of the two World Wars and the long Cold War will be considered in relation to the wave of decolonial politics and culture that swept through the continent in the last century. The chosen timeline begins with the publication of Joseph Jeffrey Walters’s Guanya Pau: A Story of an African Princess (1891) and ends with Ken Saro Wiwa’s final work, A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary (1995), marking a century of continuous intellectual and political engagement. Designed to encourage a comprehensive approach to modern Africa, this course is also about the public role of writers and thinkers in society.

· Course Component: Seminar

· Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 123Z: American Democracy

Instructors: John Stauffer & Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Tuesdays 1:00pm - 3:00pm

· Class Number:20820 Course ID:111438

Description:

Democracy, inequality, and nationalism in America. The white working class and American politics. Class and race. Identities and interests. Conditions for socially inclusive economic growth and for the deepening and dissemination of the knowledge economy. Alternative directions of institutional change, viewed in light of American history. Democratizing the market and deepening democracy. Self-reliance and solidarity. We explore and discuss the past, present, and especially the future of the American experiment among ourselves and with invited guests: thinkers, politicians, social activists, and entrepreneurs. Readings drawn from classic and contemporary writings about the United States. Extended take-home examination.

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 142X: Foundations of Modern Jazz

Instructor: Ingrid Monson

Tuesdays 12:45pm - 2:45pm

· Class Number:20660 Course ID:223989

Description:

Pan-African Musical Connections. This course explores Pan-African musical connections between the African continent and the Caribbean and the Americas. The course emphasizes three main linkages between Africa and the New World: Yoruba/Dahomey, Mali/Senegambia, and the Congo, but also touches on other continental connections. We are interested in the transnational movement of musics, culture, politics, and spirituality as well in hands on performance experience. We will feature several guest artists and a combination of scholarly and musical exploration.

Jointly Offered with: Faculty of Arts & Sciences as MUSIC 142R

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities

 

AFRAMER 143Y: African Landscape Architecture: Alternative Futures for the Field

Instructor: Gareth Doherty

Tuesdays 9:00am - 11:45am

· Class Number:21385 Course ID:224017

Description:

A central aim of this seminar is to reveal the plurality of ways landscapes are shaped across the African continent and how they help mitigate the impacts of changing climates and social injustice now and in the future. Africa is a continent rich in landscape projects and practices but only eight out of fifty-four African nations have professional associations of landscape architects. The course is framed around three central questions: 1.) How is landscape architecture currently practiced in African countries? (2.) What lessons can we learn from landscape practices in various African societies that can help mitigate the impacts of climate change and social inequities? (3.) As landscape architecture unfolds across the continent in the next 50–200 years, how can it continue assert its agency in the fight against changing climates and social inequity and claim a central space in the shaping of African cities of the future? Each week we will focus on a different country including South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria. In collaboration with several landscape architecture university programs across Africa and including practitioners and academics from across the continent, this seminar will explore what it means to practice and teach landscape architecture in societies in which the profession is nascent or non-existent and speculate on the future of the shaping of landscapes in the Global South.

Jointly Offered with: Graduate School of Design as DES 3514

· Course Component: Seminar

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 160X: Engaging Africa and its Cultures

Instructor: Timothy Ogene

Mondays 12:45pm - 2:45pm

· Class Number:21160 Course ID:220587

Description:

This course will consist of a series of interviews and conversations with emerging and established African creatives and cultural activists across genres and disciplines, including but not limited to writers, scholars, translators, filmmakers, cultural entrepreneurs, publishers, and educators. Bringing together creatives and experts from the continent and its new diasporas, this course will trace the trajectories of African cultural and political thought while situating same in lived practices. The pan-Africanist and anti-colonial ideologies that shaped the creative practices of the past will be considered alongside their new iterations in relation to emerging practices across the continent and its multiple diasporas. While developing new critical vocabularies for articulating the cultural present, the actual politics and logistic of cultural production on the continent will be considered and engaged. The emergence of new diasporic networks in Europe and the Americas will be considered alongside their older equivalents at home and abroad, in further relation to the vibrant histories of global Black cultures. Designed to bridge the gap between scholarship and creative-critical practices, this course will introduce students to the idea and practice of cultural engagement and community-building from a modern African perspective, with a particular focus on the link between global practices and local realities.

· Course Component: Seminar

· Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 172X: COLONIALISM AND ITS POSTCOLONIAL/DECOLONIAL AFTERLIVES: Critical Readings

Instructor: John Comaroff

Tuesdays 3:00pm - 5:45pm

· Class Number:21592 Course ID:221650

Description:

In an age in which decolonization and decoloniality have become the object of a great deal of popular concern and scholarly debate, this course will ask the question, “to what conception, and critique, of colonialism are these reactions? It will focus on contrasting theoretical approaches to the analysis of modern colonialism, postcoloniality, and decoloniality, addressing the vexed, much debated issue of what was or is colonialism to begin with? And, concomitantly, how are we to understand postcoloniality and decoloniality in its aftermath? In exploring theoretical approaches to the analysis of colonialism – from Lenin through Fanon and Cesaire to Walter Rodney (“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”) among others – the course will explore the relationship between empire and the rise of industrial capitalism, the significance of race, class, and gender in colonial extraction, and the modes of violence on which it was founded. It will also analyze the nature of the states, legal orders, and criminal justice systems developed to govern racialized populations abroad, the impact of the colonial encounter on the consciousness, cultures, material conditions, and lifeways of the colonized, and the kinds of refusal and resistance to which they have give rise – leading to the afterlives of colonialism: neocolonialism, postcoloniality and, in recent times, decoloniality.

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 189X: MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EMPIRE

Instructor: Jean Comaroff

Thursdays 3:00pm - 5:00pm

· Class Number:15611 Course ID:108677

Description:

This class examines the changing place of medicine in the long history of modernity. Focusing on key moments the birth of the clinic, the colonial encounter, the consolidation of medicine as profession, the age of genomics and biocapital, and the empire of global health it explores the distinctive role of medical knowledge and practice in the making of modernist persons, identities, economies, and political vocabularies. Readings are drawn from anthropology and the wider social sciences, with cases from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. The course is a mix of lecture and discussion.

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 190X: The Anthropology of Law: classical, contemporary, comparative, and critical perspectives

Instructor: John Comaroff

Thursdays 3:00pm - 5:45pm

· Class Number:21526 Course ID:108678

Description:

The early weeks will be devoted to (i) classical themes in the field, among them the legal anthropology of conflict/dispute and the practical hermeneutics of the law in cross-cultural perspective; this will be followed by a discussion of (ii) “big” theoretical questions, old and new, including relationship between law and violence, the nature of sovereignty, and the (alleged) fetishism human rights. The later weeks will address (iii) the legal anthropology of colonialism and postcoloniality, addressing law and colonial state and the invention of customary law, postcolonialism and policulturalism, and law, disorder, and informal (“vigilante”) justice; (iv) crime and policing, and finally (v) lawfare, life, and the judicialization of politics. Throughout, attention will be given to comparative perspectives in both time and space – and to the lessons to be learned from the anthropology of law, and its decoloniality, for interrogating the present moment in the USA, Europe, and Africa. Each session, with the exception of the first (September 6), will begin with an overview of the topic under discussion, and end with a summary statement; in between, the set readings will be introduced by participants in the course, who will be expected to offer a critical synopsis of the most significant points at issue and raise questions for our collective conversation. Grades will be determined by a term paper no longer than 15 pages (d/s, excl. notes + bib), on any one of the topics covered, and by class participation.

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 191X: African American Lives in the Law

Instructor: Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham

Thursdays 12:45pm - 2:45pm

· Class Number:15224 Course ID:127960

Description:

This seminar focuses on biographical and autobiographical writings in a historical examination of the role of the individual in the American legal process. We will seek to understand how specific African Americans (as lawyers, judges, and litigants) made a difference-how their lives serve as a "mirror to America"-and also to understand the ways personal experience informs individual perspectives on the law and justice.

Related Sections:

· Course Component: Lecture

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 192X: Religion and Society in Nigeria

Instructor: Jacob Olupona

Tuesdays 3:00pm - 5:45pm

· Class Number:20666 Course ID:122498

Description:

Nigeria is a dynamic, diverse, and globally influential country within Africa. Religion is pivotal to understanding the history, culture, and politics of Nigeria’s nation-state, its precolonial situation. This course examines the historical development of religion in Nigeria and explores its intersection with ethnic identity, culture, and society in pre-colonial, colonial, and contemporary periods. Topical issues for the course include indigenous religious culture; European Missionary Movements; Emergence of Islamic traditions, Christian and Muslim identities; Islam, Christianity, and the State; Civil religion and national identity; Muslim-Christian relations; Religion and law; Civil society and democratization; Emerging themes in religion in contemporary Nigeria, and many vital interpretations of religion and politics in present-day Nigeria.

Jointly Offered with: Harvard Divinity School as HDS 3704

· Course Component: Seminar

· Divisional Distribution: Social Sciences

 

AFRAMER 194Z: World Fairs

Instructor: Suzanne Blier

Mondays 3:00pm - 5:45pm

· Class Number:20662 Course ID:223990

Description:

This seminar addresses questions of cultural display through the art and architecture of world fairs, mid-nineteenth century to present. Students are introduced to the seminal fair events beginning with the Crystal Palace in London, and extending to fairs in the U.S., France, Belgium, Spain, Japan and China. the history of fairs as artistic and social phenomenon is explored along with how these events shaped national identity, ethnicity, social class, race, imperialism, colonialism, and gender.

Jointly Offered with: Faculty of Arts & Sciences as HAA 194W

· Course Component: Seminar

· Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities

Graduate Courses (200-399)

AFRAMER 202: Theory and Race in the Americas 

Instructor: Jesse McCarthy 

Mondays 3:00pm - 5:45pm 

Class Number: 20219 Course ID: 218312 

Description: 

This course surveys myths, theories, discourses, and debates surrounding the meaning of race and its role in the historical formation of the “New World” in the Americas. Beginning with the origins of racial theory in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe, we will follow their evolution and expansion into scientific and culturalist discourses in the nineteenth century, and through the dramatic transformations of the twentieth century leading up to the present. Readings will range from canonical scholars, orators, social scientists, and philosophers up to the most contemporary thinkers. Along the way, we will read work by Ottobah Cugoano, W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, Hortense Spillers, Paul Gilroy, Sylvia Wynter, Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, Denise Ferreira da Silva, James Baldwin, Cedric Robinson, Angela Davis, Imani Perry, Khalil Muhammad, Saidiya Hartman, Charles Mills, Jackie Wang, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Audre Lorde and Cornel West among others. The course places an emphasis on building foundations in the historiography and intellectual genealogy of racial discourses as they have been constructed, reproduced, contested, reimagined, and ultimately disseminated throughout the American hemisphere and beyond. 

Course Component: Lecture 

Divisional Distribution: Social Science 

 

AFRAMER 209X: Ethnomusicology: Seminar 

Instructor: Ingrid Monson 

Thursdays 9:45am - 11:45am 

Class Number:20663 Course ID:222211   

Description: 

Music, Emotion and Social Reparations. The graduate seminar explores connections between Black American Musics (BAM), Africa and themes of social justice and liberation historically, theoretically, and in relationship to economic reparations.  The power of music to inspire activism, assuage grief, manage fear, create spiritual connection, celebrate victory, and find joy has been an especially strong theme of African American and Pan-African music and history.  The seminar then poses the question, what would economic justice and structural reparations look like for Black music in the U.S. and on the African continent? How do copyright laws help or hinder?  What proposals for reparations have the strongest potential to address structural racism in Black communities in the U.S. and abroad? 

Jointly Offered with: 

Faculty of Arts & Sciences as MUSIC 209R 

 Course Component:Seminar 

Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities 

 

AFRAMER 210: W.E.B. Du Bois and His Critics 

Instructor: Henry Gates 

Mondays 12:00pm - 2:45pm 

Class Number:20125 Course ID:223916 

Description: 

W. E. B. Du Bois was among the most profound thinkers of his time, devoting a forensic and evolving attention to the issue of race over a varied career that extended from the turn of the century to his death on the eve of the March on Washington in 1963. Although he earned his PhD from Harvard in history, he is increasingly seen as one of the pioneering scholars in the then-nascent field of sociology. In this course, we will employ a structure of text and critique to evaluate the reach and utility of his ideas, on subjects ranging from the development of racial consciousness to nuclear disarmament to the international order and the role of Africa, Africans, and African Americans in it. This course will examine Du Bois’s original writings in the context of the debates they sparked and will revisit his interactions with key figures, both Black and white, of the twentieth century. 

Course Component: Seminar 

Divisional Distribution: Arts and Humanities 

 

AAAS 212B: New Directions in Black Power Studies 

Instructors: Brandon Terry & Jarvis Givens 

Thursdays 12:00pm – 2:00pm 

Class Number: 17146 Course ID: 222506 

Description: 

The 2023-2024 Warren Center for American History workshop brings together an interdisciplinary group of historians, social scientists, humanists, and scholars of black political thought to explore what might be at stake — philosophically, theoretically, culturally, and politically — in revisiting the Black Power Movement in the present. Building on the successes of Black Power Studies scholars, this seminar seeks to resist unduly defensive and siloed forms of scholarly engagement, to openly and critically interrogate Black Power’s political and cultural dynamics, social formations, and conceptual contributions to political and social thought across such key concerns as political violence, education, the philosophy of race, cultural politics, gender, political economy, and more. Engaging the work-in-progress of visiting scholars, faculty, and other guests, the seminar will provide an extended opportunity to reflect upon the political and intellectual legacy of Black Power, the place of black radical traditions in academic scholarship, and how historians, theorists, and social scientists might work more collaboratively to pursue the hard questions the movement continues to raise. 

To receive credit for this course students must enroll in part A and part B in the same academic year. 

Course Component: Seminar 

Divisional Distribution: Social Science 

 

AAAS 222B: Afrodescendant Citizenship in Latin America: Mobilization, Contestation, and Change 

Instructors: Alejandro de la Fuente & Paulina Alberto 

Fridays 12:00pm – 2:00pm 

Class Number: 16136 Course ID: 222011 

Description: 

This seminar studies contemporary struggles over citizenship and belonging by Afrodescendants in Latin America, situating these struggles within historical patterns of nation building, racial stratification, and political mobilization. Afrodescendants have been at the forefront of struggles typically associated with liberal values—equality, democracy, voting rights—since the colonial period. But Afrodescendant activists, thinkers, and artists have also articulated alternative visions of freedom and belonging that are frequently sidelined in the dominant narratives about rights and citizenship in Latin America. The seminar is conducted in conjunction with the Sawyer Seminar “Afrodescendant Citizenship in Latin America” funded by the Mellon Foundation. This will allow us to bring scholars, activists, artists and other practitioners involved in struggles for racial justice in Latin America to our class and our campus. 

Undergraduate students who wish to take this class should get in touch with the instructors in advance. Students must complete both terms of this course (parts A and B) within the same academic year in order to receive credit. Students need to register under History or AAAS but not both for credit. 

Course Component: Seminar 

Divisional Distribution: Social Science 

 

AFRAMER 310: Individual Reading Tutorial 

Instructor: Contact the Course Coordinator 

-TBA 

Class Number:13623 Course ID:115731 

Description: 

Allows students to work with an individual member of the faculty in a weekly tutorial. 

Course Notes: 

Students may not register for this course until their adviser and the faculty member with whom they plan to work have approved a program of study. 

 Course Component: Reading Course 

Divisional Distribution: None 

 

AFRAMER 390: Individual Research 

Class Number:13624 Course ID:115732 

Description: 

Requires students to identify and carry out a research project under the guidance of a member of the faculty. Graduate students may use this course to begin work on the research paper required for admission to candidacy. 

Course Component: Reading and Research Course 

 

AFRAMER 391: Directed Writing 

Instructor: Contact the Course Coordinator 

-TBA 

Class Number: 13625 Course ID: 119827 

Description: 

Requires students to identify a major essay and carry it out under the guidance of a member of the faculty. Graduate students may use this course to begin to work on the research paper that is a requirement of admission to candidacy.   

Course Component: Reading and Research Course 

 

AFRAMER 392: Teaching, Writing, and Research 

Description: 

Allows students to meet necessary credit threshold while completing fellowship work and the like. 

  • Class Number:13622 Course ID:210981 

  • Course Component: Reading and Research 

  • Divisional Distribution: None 

 

AFRAMER 398: Reading and Research 

-TBA 

Class Number:14514 Course ID:122706 

  Course Notes: 

Permission of the instructor and the Director of Graduate Studies is required for enrollment. 

Course Component:Reading and Research 

Divisional Distribution:None 

 

AFRAMER 399: Direction of Doctoral Dissertations 

-TBA 

Class Number:13626 Course ID:115733  

Course Component: Reading and Research 

Divisional Distribution:None